


All those echoes

by estherlyon



Series: Prompts in a Galaxy far far away [8]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: F/M, Post-Scarif, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-10
Updated: 2018-06-10
Packaged: 2019-05-20 14:59:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14896743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/estherlyon/pseuds/estherlyon
Summary: This was posted for Day 4 of Jyn Week, in response to the prompt "Echo".





	All those echoes

They offered her the possibility of letting her off onto any planet of her choice. And it was tempting, honestly, but Jyn looked at Mon Mothma in the midst of the celebrations after the Death Star was destroyed and couldn’t say anything.

There was Bodhi, who now wore orange. There were Baze and Chirrut and the way they called her “sister”. There was Cassian, being a terrible patient in the medward. The young Rodhian nurse who was mostly responsible for him would often throw her desperate glances when he was being particularly difficult and she usually went and just shot him a look, one she knew already that worked somehow, and he would stop fighting treatment, fighting his legs, fighting the drugs.

She took her time, obviously, because the thought of staying made something sharp and prickly wrap itself around her heart like barbed wire.

In the end, when Cassian finally managed to put a foot in front of the other almost without needing the assistance of exercise bars and looked at her smiling like he had after he had shot the man in white, she looked for the former senator and told her that she was staying.

A day later, they evacuated Yavin IV.

*

Jyn sat in the back of the briefing room on  _Home One_ , watching as Cassian, Leia and Captain Rex poured over a Galaxy chart, but not fully paying attention, really, because her mind was elsewhere.

Cassian was actually walking again, for the first time without crutches for a whole week now, and she kept her eyes firmly on him for any sign of discomfort. She couldn’t help herself, really, and hoped against hope that her new comrades wouldn’t interpret it in any way other than her being haunted by the vision of him spread out on that platform while she held on to dear life on that data tower.

Because she was. All the time. If she closed her eyes, she could hear the echoes of each time he hit those beams on the way down after he was shot.

But ever since she told Mon Mothma on the ground on Yavin IV that she was staying with them, there was one other thing that made Jyn feel uneasy in joining the Rebel Alliance, other than guilt: her treacherous, treacherous heart.

Jyn honestly enjoyed all the rest, most of the time. It reminded her of the best days in Saw’s cadre, where she had been given a new family – a violent, weird one, but a family nonetheless. Rex, especially, because of that, treated her with a whole different level of kindness, once he knew who had raised her into the soldier she was. Every time she caught him singing a shanty of some sort and she would sing in response, she could swear the clone’s eyes grew misty and wide.

She had new a brother in Bodhi and something like spiritual guides in Baze and Chirrut. She forged an easy camaraderie with Han Solo, with whom she went on supply runs. With Leia and Luke she felt always a bit intimidated, but they never gave her any valid reason for feeling so. There was Sabine Wren, always ready to kick her ass in the training room, or getting her ass kicked, whichever suited both of them.

And then, there was Cassian, who made her cheeks heat up more often than not these days, and whom she inadvertently thought of every time she tried to fall asleep in her bunk in her dormitory.  And not just because every time she had seen him wince during his recovery, she felt like acid was being poured in her stomach.

Yes, she knew the type of thing they went through together was bound to leave them with something like a perpetual bond or whatever (if she wanted to be sentimental about it, she thought snarkily) and he seemed to mirror that, but he had given her no inkling of wanting a relationship that was more than platonic. He was also busy. The Rebellion was spread thin, they didn’t have a base, he was certainly going to be shipped out somewhere and she probably wouldn’t be trusted to go along.

Which was fine with her, because the kind of feelings he elicited in her was honestly terrifying. Even if it left her with a hollow heartache whenever he touched her in passing – and now that she noticed it, he touched her  _a lot_  – or whenever he showed concern for her.

It was that kind of heartache she was feeling now and which made her focus on the blinking and disappearing planets on the projection over the table to try and smother it.

“Sergeant Erso?”

It was Leia’s clear voice and she felt heat creep up her neck at being caught not paying attention and instead musing over her feelings as she tried subtly to see on which leg Cassian was putting his weight on. There she went again.

“Yes?”

“You are being assigned to go to Thila with Captain Andor to scout for a base. It was another cell's, but it was deactivated when we converged on Yavin IV. It would be optimal if we didn’t have to build something from scratch.”

The princess was, Jyn noticed, being especially charitable, but it also meant that everyone in the room was now perfectly aware that she hadn’t been paying attention to what they were saying.

“Fine. It’ll be-“ she swallowed, went for a smile, “great to be on a mission with Captain Andor again. Especially when it’s his first after- After.”

She felt like looking for the nearest airshute the second the words were out of her mouth.

*

She climbed onto the co-pilot seat in the new U-Wing he had been assigned, the lights of the hangar making the deep space they could see from it less than inviting.

“Especially when it’s my first?” he echoed; they hadn’t spoken since they had been told to prep.

“You know what I meant,” she practically growled, fussing with the fraying seat belt to hide how much of an idiot she felt. It was a “new” U-Wing in only a matter of speaking, apparently.

“Yes, I do,” he replied softly, hands reaching over to her seat and buckling her up, and like all the times he had reached out and touched her, he made it seem second nature while she froze up inside all the time in a sort of panic.

(She didn’t - couldn’t, really - remember the expression on  _his_  face the one time she had touched him without noticing. She wouldn’t until much later.)

He settled back on his seat and blew his hair from his eyes before putting on his headphones.

“Good,” she said belatedly, a little breathlessly, before his ears were filled with comm chatter (or perhaps hoping that they were).

He looked at her sideways, a little mysteriously smug, she found, “good.”

*

Thila was mountainous and among its snowy peaks, nestled among the rocks, there were the remnants of a base, just like they were told. Cassian seemed satisfied with it, but she couldn’t help but imagine if Yavin IV looked like this now or if the Imps had bulldozed the place already. Something made her heart still at the thought of the hangar where she had been offered a home for first time in years being torn into a pile of rubble, but Cassian seemed unaffected. He took notes onto a datapad, made images of what he found relevant, and she did her best to aid him in that, tearing through the deserted hangar with a truncheon in her hand and her blaster  -  _his,_ actually - smarting at her side.

They found nonperishable supplies, a couple of shield generators, medkits.

“It’s like they knew we’d come,” she said, munching on a nutrient bar from one of the crates on the hangar. She was sitting down against one of them, taking a break.

“Or they were expecting to come back,” he said, pocketing the one she offered him in spite of her glare.

“Do you know the people who were stationed here?” she asked.

“Some of them went to Scarif,” he shot her a careful glance, “part of the fleet that followed us.”

Suddenly the nutrient bar wasn’t that appetizing anymore.

“I’m sorry,” she found herself saying and the words were so weird in her tongue, she couldn’t help but frown.

“For what?” his eyes were wide, blinking at her like he couldn’t make any sense out of what she was saying.

“Well, I talked you all into a suicide mission. And now these people-“

“Jyn, this isn’t on you,” he shook his head, “we went because we wanted to fight. And really, I know- I appreciate-“

“What?”

“Nothing,” he said, “come on. We only did the hangar and we have to get back tonight.”

She could read through his banthashit spy face half the time, but there were some times when it was nearly impossible. Apparently now was one of them. She was shoving the rest of the nutrient bar in her mouth and was ready to get up, when she saw he was offering her his hand. She swallowed and took it, but miscalculated the strength he was using in actually pulling her up and went smack into his arms, hitting her head on his chin.

“Kriff!”

“Ow.”

“Fuck, I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s okay, I shouldn’t have pulled you up so fast-“

“No, you shouldn’t because of your back, by the way.”

“Jyn-“

“What?”

“Just- stop.”

Her heart fell through her stomach.

“Stop what?”

“Worrying. I’m fine.”

What she didn’t actually realize was that through this exchange, they had still been standing very near each other, just as they had when the crowds in Jedha had pushed them together, and she when she did, she just couldn’t cope. So she stepped back, swiped her truncheon out and went into the hangar to investigate the rest of the base ahead of him, without saying a word in response.

He didn’t follow. Not at first. And Jyn felt her eyes water, irrationally, because it really hadn’t been what she thought it was. He was just telling her not to worry, she told herself, only that was nearly impossible, because he hadn’t seen it, had he? He hadn’t hung onto to those datatapes with the wind bearing down on him, while she was spread out on that platform below. He wasn’t the one that thought that he was hallucinating after being shot by the man in white, seeing ghosts. Because she had been sure, so kriffing sure, he had died.

In her effort to rid herself of her tears, she sliced open the door to what looked like an armory and the sheer amount of amno and explosives she saw there made her suddenly sniff loudly in an abrupt end to her crying. Her truncheon banged against the door and sent a loud echo throughout the cave.

“Jyn?” her name echoed back in response and she cleared her throat.

“In here!”

She was still on the threshold when he arrived and had composed herself enough to turn around to face him with a smile like a lothcat’s.

“Look at this.”

He seemed equally relieved to find something they could both be happy about. Who knew bombs could bring about peace?

*

They started packing in crates only what they deemed essential (which it turned out was a lot), just as the wind was picking up and the clouds that had been hiding behind the peaks that shadowed the base started moving towards the plateau that made it accessible. By the time they had finished, the sky was pitch dark and thunder rumbled in the sky, gusts of wind now carrying the first raindrops. Neither were wearing raingear – to his credit, Cassian was wearing his parka – so soon, they were drenched, shoving crates into the cargo hold as fast as they could.

It used to rain on Yavin IV, but they were usually late afternoon showers under which she had spent inside, and it had been comforting, somehow, because the rain and thunder usually sliced through the heat and brought some semblance of relief to it. This, however, was a storm much like another, cold and unforgiving, out of which Jyn had been carried off with her hands stained with fresh blood that might as well have been hers. At the same time she started feeling cold – her teeth chattering so much her jaw hurt – the worry she usually carried around churned in her stomach, but she didn’t say anything. She stole glances at him, as he grew wet, his hair falling over his face and bringing out a sharpness in his features that hurt to look at, but she remained steadfast at the job of hauling in as many crates as she could. When they finished, she stood just at the edge of the ramp, trying to steady her trembling hands. She turned to look at him, feeling raindrops running down her nose and dripping onto the floor, and he looked like he wanted to say something, so she beat him to it.

“I don’t want to argue like this,” she said simply, rushed, chin wobbling either because of the cold or the feelings she was suffocating in.

“Eadu,” he replied, eyes immeasurably sad, and something in them lit a spark in her, “I know. I won’t. At all, actually.”

She just stood there, hands balled into fists, trying to will her entire body to stop shaking.

“You’re freezing,” he mumbled and stepped towards her.

She didn’t have time to react, really, even though she felt in him  _some_  level of caution. But he was suddenly wrapping his arms around her and she was letting him, because this was the most miserable she had felt since joining the Rebellion and really, who else could offer  _this_  level of comfort? Sure she had friends, but none of them had sat down with her on a beach and waited for death to come, content to be at her side. She was being stupid, asking for more. How could she dare want anything else, when Cassian understood so much?

“Don’t,” she found herself saying, “don’t blame me for worrying. I know you do, too.”

“I don’t,” he said over her hair and the sound of the rain hitting the durasteel above them, “blame you, that is. I do worry. That was what I was trying to say.”

She stood in silence, wanting for them to move into the ship, because this was stupid, but at the same time, it would mean leaving his arms.

“I don’t blame you for  _anything_ ,” and in saying this, he pushed back and put his hands on the sides of her head, to make sure she was looking into his eyes.

“I don’t blame you for anything, either,” she whispered, “not even Eadu. Not anymore.”    

He closed his eyes and let his forehead fall forwards until it was touching hers, thumbs brushing her cheek and she had to swallow down a sob.

“Jyn,” he said, breath against her cheek, which was wet with rain or tears, Force if she knew.

“I’m here,” she mumbled back, because in the medward that had been her usual response and she curled her hands even tighter onto his parka, so he would fucking  _notice_.

She felt him swallow, in a silence that lasted ages in Jyn’s head, only the echo of thunder and lightening ripping through the sky filling her ears, making her shove all other echoes into the past, if she dared hope.

“Would I-,” he said and she felt rather than saw him lick his lips, “would I be presumptuous- Do you-?”

“Yes,” she said rapidly, then scrunched her nose and squeezed her arms around him before he could pull back, “no, you’re not presumptuous.”

He didn’t let her finish, just kissed her, slowly at first, which made the teeny tiny spark which had lit inside her before roar into a fire, and she pushed up against him, opening her mouth, letting him taste her like she had wanted to do for so long, even if she hadn’t realized it yet. He tangled his hand into her wet hair, put his cold, rain-soaked fingers on the back of her neck, and she just relished the feel of him, bit his lower lip so she could finally know what that actually felt like. The moan he let out was absolutely sinful and she felt something foreign tighten in her belly at the sound.

She pulled away, “not to fuss, but-“

“It’s no good standing here all wet?” he huffed, an amused laugh she wanted to bottle and carry around with her forever.

“Yes,” she replied, lowering her hand from the back of his neck, all the way down his torso until it almost touched the back of his trousers, and whispered teasingly, “your back.”

“Fine,” he said, his eyes warm and understanding, “lead the way.”

When he raised the cargo hold door behind them, she felt suddenly glad for the storm: they wouldn’t dare lift off during it, would they? She turned inquiring eyes toward him, hoping he would understand. 

Cassian did something with his mouth, looking down toward the wet floor beneath him and then glancing at her through his lashes, and she suddenly knew she wouldn’t even have to convince him.


End file.
